In Wake of Major Disasters, Women Face Cultural Barriers to Claiming Land Rights

When Kousar Parveen sets her mind to doing something, it happens. A young woman living in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Parveen promotes education and justice for Pakistani women — a challenge, but one that she is up to.

Growing up in Kashmir under laws that often limit the role of women, Parveen worked hard to attain an education, becoming one of only five female lawyers in Muzaffarabad. Her work in family law gives her an important forum for addressing women's rights.

Parveen is now bolstering the work of Bedari, a grassroots human-rights organization in Pakistan — and a UUSC program partner. Formed in 1992 by women activists, Bedari addresses the long-term need for rights awareness among women in Pakistan, encouraging selfgrowth through mutual support. As its English website explains, "All individuals have a personal capability of achieving a positive change [...], and Bedari acts as a catalyst and facilitator of this process of change."

In the aftermath of a disaster

After the South Asia earthquake in October 2005, land and land-inheritance issues became increasingly important for Bedari and the women it serves.

The magnitude 7.6 tremor killed 75,000 people in Pakistan and left thousands of families homeless. Many women, particularly widows, found themselves not only struggling with the loss of family and land, but also barely able to maintain their homes and livelihoods.

When UUSC invited Bedari to send a delegation to western Indonesia — itself a site of a major disaster, the 2004 tsunami — to learn how Indonesian women's groups were dealing with land-inheritance issues, Parveen knew she had to go.

Women's financial security after disaster

The fight for women's landinheritance rights is not unique to Pakistan: it's shared by women throughout the world struggling in the aftermath of disaster.

As a lawyer, Parveen saw firsthand the problems that women can face in claiming fair compensation after a disaster. Most women in Pakistan do not have assets in their names, and they lack the social standing to make compelling land claims for themselves and their children. When they are able to secure compensation, they can come under intense pressure from their family to pass along money and property to male family members, who traditionally are seen as stewards of family assets.

In some cases, after a disaster, women can benefit from income generation programs, such as crafts and business-skills training. But these programs miss a vital fact: owning hard assets, such as a shop, farm land, or a home, provides much greater financial security in the long run than earning a day-to-day wage. This is why UUSC helps women claim land- and property-inheritance rights, a powerful strategy for supporting women's economic well-being after disaster.

"The setback [of losing property] happens at a time when a woman's financial security is critical, when owning land and other property can mean the difference between destitution and survival," explains Gretchen Alther, associate for UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises, who organized the Pakistan-Indonesia exchange. "After a disaster, women who hold assets are better situated to secure a livelihood for themselves and their children."

Cultural barriers to claiming rights

Along with four other Bedari members, Parveen arrived in Aceh in November 2007. Aceh is located in Indonesia, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The area was hard hit by the 2004 tsunami, which killed 255,000 people in 11 countries. Communities are still recovering; but activists in Aceh have been able to make some inroads on land-inheritance rights for women. Women's inheritance rights in Aceh and Pakistan are complex. Both groups follow patriarchal traditions that often disadvantage women and children. Legal rights are based on a combination of formal law, sharia (Islamic) law, and customary law, which can vary greatly from community to community.

In Aceh, the village head and the council of elders are responsible for making decisions and resolving village disputes about inheritance and land. In principle, everyone involved in an issue must come to an agreement. However, in practice, women are frequently left out of discussions.

This is where Bedari and our Indonesian partners come in. Most of the women they serve have limited access to formal court systems and know little about their rights under formal or sharia law. But Parveen and her colleagues help to guide women through the thorny process of claiming land and inheritance rights.

In Aceh, Parveen began to think critically about the similarities and differences between the two places and, of particular interest to her as a lawyer, the differences in their legal systems. Knowing that people living in Pakistan generally have less access to courts, Parveen realized that advocating through community leaders and communal courts would be crucial to the success of her work. Since then, ten new cases have been reported to Parveen and Bedari from different Kashmiri communities. Most stem from the earthquake.

Moving forward, Parveen will support these cases at the community level and, when necessary, transcend community structures to seek out formal courts. Her participation in UUSC's learning exchange in Aceh has deepened her understanding of this work. She is now using this experience to achieve landinheritance rights for all.